I recently came back from a week in france with a group from adv and have done a ride report, so here goes

sw france ramblings. The plan was simple catch a ferry from Ireland, ride down to cubas cheviex, ride my bike for 4 days on proper offroad, loaded with my camping gear and enjoy. Simple right?

The first hurdle was the ferrys we have two companys who normally sail direct, usually on alternate days, not this time either Thursday or Saturday. As we were meeting on the Sunday I chose the tight on time option as my holiday leave is kind of tight this year. To add to this our forman at where I�ve worked for the last 20 years was having a retirement party on Friday night.

so saturday morning with a pounding headache I headed the 180 miles in the lashing rain to rosslare. I had decided on changing to a proper full fat knobbly rear tyre once the 650ish miles were behind me, I looked proper hard core.



anyhow, arrived with plenty of time to spare and was sent to board straight away, at least I was out of the rain. After a fitful 20 hours trying to sleep in the cheapskates lounge (another �140 for cabin)I reckon the room was bolted to the top of the ships engine, it rattled and vibrated all night. The ship was late docking into Cherbourg and to compound matters the trucks had to be removed first as the bikes and a few cars were safely tucked away in the keel, safe from pirates?




So it was nearly 3 when I hit the road. the garmin 60 was supposed to steer me around the tolls and major towns, and of coarse warn me of cameras, it failed on all counts, i got stung for $11.50 around le mans thought it did speed me through. just south of there i decided to join the n road system and dropped off the peage network, confronted with a closed kiosk and vending machine I found i had fumbled my ticket. The gap in the barrier looked doable, i eased through, bloody hell the alarms went off, the camera swivelled to have a gawk at me, I glanced at the driver behind who was laughing and gesticulating in a straight line with his hands, what the hell! time to gas it up!.
It was a hard 460 miles not too hot, a slight bit of rain. Really good travelling weather. Had my picky taken at least twice at least they were forward facing cameras. It was about 10ish when I reached the rv. The resturant on site fixed me a bit of dinner, I was fit for anything at this stage, certainly ready for my tent. Group shot before the off




The first day on the trails, Monday, got up early bunged the bike on a rock and slipped on a mitas 02, packed the tent etc away and organised what I needed on the trails. It was all ready starting to warm up.
My riding group, �The fast/hard�, Charles the leader, Brendan, Fiona, Phil, Seamus. It was mostly ktm 690�s a 450 and a wr250 in our group. We were away about 9.30ish after brekky and straight away into the trails, nothing too difficult, there were 2 river crossings, proper ones, unfortunately the little yam was dropped and Fiona doggedly lifted it out and trudged it across.



] Brendon showing how it�s done



at least It wasn�t too hard to start and on we went. Along the trail we came to a rather technical section and as the other group �easy� had a gs1200 ridden by the American, we closed the trail and left a note. There was a hill climb along the route, not part of it, and yes i chickened out, the tenere had a long journey ahead, i had no desire to add to its damage, bloody hell even Fiona give it a go!, no one cleaned it tho.



We stopped off for a four course lunch which was superb and continued on the often challenging trail to the camp at Sarlat. I live for days like this!, good friends, weather, food and awesome trails
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